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I purchased my 07 Classic in April of this year and i usually get out to fish about 3 times a week. My trolling motor seems to be losing power, and my topend speed is maybe half of what it was back in April. Would the batteries be wearing down already? Whats the typical life expectancy of a trolling motor battery? 2 years?Thanks in advance, btw im almost positive there interstate batteries.
2 years of hard use seems about right… I am assuming you are running a 24 volt trolling motor… That being said, pull the batteries and take them to an auto parts store and have them checked to see if you have a bad cell in either. Always keep your water levels full (1/2 inch below the top caps more or less) with distilled H2O. Oftentimes guys will leave their batteries on a charger and never check the water… the life of the unit is drastically reduced that way. Check your connections and keep them clean with a wire brush. Interstate batteries are great so unless your going to throw down a couple hundred $s a piece for optima or trojan units, you should be fine. Another thing to consider is that your batteries may still have some prorated warranty left. Take them to your interstate dealer and see if you can get some money back when trading up for new batteries.
My Interstate SRM 27s only lasted 8 months. I upgraded to SRM 29s for an additional $40, and they seem to have alot more juice and no issues so far.
I fish 2-3 times a week, usually. Down through the years, I normally will need to buy new TM batteries sometime during the third year. I always get a cranking battery at the same time, just to be on the safe side. Of course, living in Indiana for all of my life, I fish very little if at all from Dec. to the first of March. Ive always had Interstate batteries. I have no clue what size I have in my 06 CougarFTD. Whatever Sherm put in it when it was new.Hopefully when I move to Alabama…those batteries will get a lot more use!!!
If youre using an onboard charger, my guess is you have run them dry. For some reason Interstates are bad about going dry when left on an onboard charger–even the ones that go to float. JohnJones Trolling Motor Services870 773 3474Motorguide/MinnKota/PowerPole/Lowrance/Humminbird
If ive ran them dry will caping off w/ water help? or am i scewed?
Couple of rules to get as long a life as possible:1. Check the water regularly. On-board chargers can boil water off as easily as others. I quit using em, but if I were still doing so, I would plug em in and let them charge for a day, then unplug them so that a flakey charger would not smoke the batteries.2. charge immediately after you return home from using them. The longer they sit in a partially discharged state, the more capacity they lose (permanently, I might add).3. An occasional heavy-duty charge for a few hours can also help restore lost capacity. Say 30ah charging rather than 5-10 or trickling.4. Dont forget em during the off-season if it is too cold to fish. Charge at least once a month, once every 2 weeks is better. I typically get what others report. 2 years of decent performance, and perhaps a third if I am lucky. I have not tried the spiral cell batteries but the gel-cell batteries are not bad at all if you dont repeatedly over-charge them.I also have much better luck with brand names like Delco or Interstate. I avoid the never-starts and such as they have never lasted very long. My last new boat (92) came with Stingers and they were also pretty short-lived…2008 Pantera Classic2014 Mercury Pro XS 200
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This is a very hard question to pin down. It depends on the battery quality and type of batterys. Charging cycle and speed to charge, water kept up on ell plates and more all effect the length of any batteries life span. Most like yours are able to be restored about 70% of the time with a hard charge from a fast cycling ferrel resonate charger.
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